Today has been an exceedingly weird and stressful day here. My wife had an operation early this morning, which meant I was wandering the halls of Rochester General Hospital for a few hours. The operation went very well, and she was home four hours after it started. (The wonders of ‘scope jobs never . . . → Read More: Generations
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The title of this post is also the title of an intriguing and very worthwhile post by Steve Easterbrook, here: While incorrect mental models and overconfidence might explain some of the problem that people have in accepting the scale and urgency of the [climate change] problem, it doesn’t really explain the argumentation style of climate denialists, particularly . . . → Read More: Social epistemology and climate denialism I’ve often mentioned the rather, shall we say, psychotic nature of what shows up in my mailbox thanks to the good people at Google and their Alerts service. I consider Google Alerts to be an outstanding resource, but once in a while something like this shows up: Is it any wonder that the people who choose . . . → Read More: Alarming Antarctica alerts abound Now here’s an item to make you grind your molars: New Anti-Smog Restrictions Could Warm Planet: The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to tighten the ozone standard for smog will have an unfortunate side effect: Because of a quirk of atmospheric chemistry, those measures will hasten global warming. There’s no question that smog is a hazard that deserves attention. . . . → Read More: Another climate catch-22 OK, maybe your specific house doesn’t suck energy, but statistically speaking, the odds are depressingly high that in terms of energy consumption your current abode is replete with sucktitude. Why do I say this? Well… US loses opportunity with home energy efficiency: About 17 percent of new homes built in 2008 earned the Energy Star label. The . . . → Read More: Your house sucks energy Bike Riding 7 Year Old Raises Over $100,000 For Haiti: The other day I posed the question: “who is the more sustaining? Those who only care about themselves, or those who look out for others?” The story of Charlie Simpson, gives me hope it is the latter. Young Charlie, all of seven years old, saw the images of . . . → Read More: Put Charlie in charge John Cook has posted (and maintains) a terrific summary of the pros and cons of global climate change, divided into the categories, Agriculture, Health, Arctic Melt, Environment, Ocean Acidification, Glacier Melt, Economical [must be the thriftier consequences?]. Each bullet point has a linked source. John is open to contributions, and says, “Note to skeptics – here . . . → Read More: Climate change pros and cons While looking for something else on Ye Olde Intertubes just a few minutes ago, I stumbled across the following gem: Global Warming: Who Said What — and When: It turns out Al Gore was hardly the first one to sound the alarm. Looking back nearly three decades, you can find prominent people warning the public about the danger . . . → Read More: Climate change quotes Data Highlights: U.S. Feeds One Quarter of its Grain to Cars While Hunger is on the Rise: The 107 million tons of grain that went to U.S. ethanol distilleries in 2009 was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels. More than a quarter of the total U.S. grain crop was . . . → Read More: Infonugget: 25% of US corn NASA released the news about just how warm it was in 2009 and the last decade, and now we have some imagery to go with it. First up is 2009: Next is 2000-2009: These images are from NASA’s Image of the Day site: Except for a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s, Earth’s surface temperatures have increased . . . → Read More: Picturing global warming |
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